Long long ago in the nowhere land kuku sat thinking about moving a big rock he wanted to gift his wife as a chopping board. He had found the rock with smooth surface while grazing his goats. The rock was a tad heavy though and he did not want to spend time gathering his brothers to lift the stone. He thought about it and rolled the stone on wooden logs home. His wife was happy with the gift but the village was happy with the log - something like this invented the rolling machine out of necessity.
Several births later, kuku-VII wanted to carry his seriously ill grand mother to the village quack for ash-therapy. All his brothers were out at his 4th cousin's bachelor party. Out of necessity, he decided to use the same concept that was used to get the chopping board for his wife. Placing a wooden platform like slab on logs of wood, he rolled the gm to the quack. For the next time, he concocted the platform tied to the slimmer logs which turned and became inventions called wheels.
Some more births later Kuku wanted to travel to the neighbouring village in time to reach his wife who was about to deliver his 14th baby. The gods had blessed him and he wanted to be at his in-laws in time. Trying to direct activities of building a dam for his village though, he got late. The need for speed spurred him into trying tying his horse to the platform wheel contraption and probably thus was invented horse driven carriage out of necessity.
Kuku is now in 19th Century. He rides more advanced inventions called automobiles which do not even require horses to pull them. His life has been made simpler by a number of inventions. Shoes on his feet, laces with egglets for tying shoes, warm jackets for winter, cars for travelling, a telephone for conversing with people, a watch on his wrist for telling, even date and day of the week, a shaver to speed up shaving, even styling gel so that his hair remains in a particular shape!
A new circular invention is puzzling him though. The circle which has been the foundation of all inventions has come up in the form of an automatic toothbrush. The puzzle is that there is nothing automatic about it. The toothpaste still has to be applied, the brush still has to be moved over the teeth (and maybe gums) and all nooks and crannies in the mouth. All it does automatically is rotate like the first wheel rotated. It gobbles up some electricity for the motor to turn or for its batteries to charge, thereby adding, bit by bit to the carbon emission and it rotates for no possible purpose that is not already served by normal toothbrushes. It needs parts to be manufactured, some plastic, some metal. Each goes through production lines, each one adding and adding to the waste and carbon of this world. Everytime an old one is dumped there is further addition to non-biodegradable waste.
Kuku cannot imagine why or how people are convinced to get one of these rotating brushes! Its not like polishing shoes where a lot of effort (comparatively speaking) is required for the polishing and the surface area to be covered is more. Its like selling snow polishing brush to eskimoes for their igloo ice bricks or using a B52 bomber to nip down to the daily needs shop round the corner to buy bread. This did not mean that kuku under-valued the importance of brushing teeth ;-) all he wondered was, was it necessary to spend oodles of money to invent and use an automatic tooth brush. Is necessity the mother of invention any longer?
